


Accord

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Dancing, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Living Together, M/M, No Plot/Plotless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-07-27 05:18:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20040559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "'It’s just…' Aziraphale's hands flutter wildly in front of him, as if to stand in for the wings he presently has demurely tucked away in consideration of the houseplants balanced rather precariously around the edges of the room. 'You learned the gavotte for me?'" Crowley makes an admission and Aziraphale expresses his gratitude.





	Accord

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lawrencetheshark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lawrencetheshark/gifts).

“You’re _ joking_.”

Crowley hadn’t been expecting quite so violent a reaction. It’s one thing to startle Aziraphale into one of his wide-eyed stares, or even jolt him into surprise enough to win a champagne-bubble giggle from him; it’s quite another to have him bolting upright so suddenly Crowley’s head is knocked from his comfortable position sprawling across the support of the other’s lap. Crowley grimaces at Aziraphale’s motion, and then adds a groan of discomfort for good measure, just in case his unhappiness wasn’t noticed, before he cracks one eye open to take stock of how his protest is being taken.

It’s not being taken at all, unfortunately. Aziraphale is on his feet, or nearly there, caught in the action of lurching upright at Crowley’s statement. His eyes are indeed wide with surprise, and fixed on Crowley where the other’s abrupt motion dumped him to spill across the span of the couch, but Crowley would put absolute odds that Aziraphale is seeing nothing at all of what’s actually in front of him.

He still makes a show of twisting himself around to push up onto his elbow. There’s no point in missing an opportunity, after all.

“I’m not,” Crowley says, and reaches to draw free the sunglasses that he left on after their return from a picnic on the grass at St. James’s Park. “Why would I joke about this, it’s not even particularly funny. I’m offended that you thought my humor would stoop so low.”

“I don’t,” Aziraphale blurts. “It’s just…” His hands flutter wildly in front of him, as if to stand in for the wings he presently has demurely tucked away in consideration of the houseplants balanced rather precariously around the edges of the room. “You learned the gavotte for _ me_?”

Crowley’s face heats. “Well,” he hedges. “Not for you _ exactly_. I mean, it was all the rage for a while there, you never know when things are going to…” but he’s making the mistake of looking into Aziraphale’s bright-faced hope, and the steam engine of his equivocation runs short of fuel and whines itself to a stop. Crowley looks up at Aziraphale for a moment, with his silence echoing self-consciously against the room, before he grimaces and shakes his head. “Right. Yeah, I did it for you. It’s not like it’s ever been popular with literally anyone else.”

“_Oh_,” Aziraphale says, in that soft tone that simultaneously melts all Crowley’s resistance and burns his face to the radiance of a sunburn. Aziraphale’s hands come together to clasp in front of his chest. “_Crowley_.”

“Don’t,” Crowley warns with all the menace of someone speaking to the glow of daybreak and intending to stop the sun from rising. “Don’t do it, Aziraphale, don’t you say--”

Aziraphale draws a breath; the sun bursts above the horizon. “You _ must _ dance it with me!”

Crowley groans and drops back to fall across the cushions of the sofa left vacant by the angel’s precipitous departure. “_Absolutely _ not.”

“Why not?” Aziraphale’s tone is too radiant to allow for any possibility of refusal, as if all Crowley really needs is a little cajoling to be brought around to seeing the perfect delight to be had in moving through the stiff formality of a dance popular for approximately five minutes a hundred years ago. Crowley lifts his arm to shade over his eyes in lieu of his absent glasses but he can still hear the sound of Aziraphale drawing in closer to him. “It will be such fun!”

“It will not be,” Crowley says to the rapt audience of the shadows over his face. “There are so many better things we can do with the afternoon. I have several suggestions, if you’d like to hear them.”

“We can do those too,” Aziraphale says. “It’s hardly as if _ we’re _ in any kind of a hurry, after all.” Crowley can feel the other standing just at the edge of the couch, can sense the persuasion of an angelic gaze fixed upon his face. He keeps his arm determinedly raised to make a shield in front of his features and chooses to sustain stoic silence instead of essaying any kind of argument. He is strong, he is standing firm, he will certainly never give way on this point; and then Aziraphale takes a breath, and Crowley can feel his whole body tighten against whatever new trial the other is about to put him through.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, and it’s his soft tone, the gentle touch he only ever uses when...well, whenever he wants something from Crowley. “Please?”

Crowley groans into the barrier of his arm and lets it fall from his face. It served well enough to defend him from the temptation of Aziraphale’s sparkling eyes but there’s nothing he can do about the persuasion of the other’s voice. Maybe he would have been better off covering his ears instead. He’s left looking up into Aziraphale’s face leaning in over him as the other clasps his hands close to his chest in a gesture of hope as effective as it is earnest.

“Fine,” Crowley sighs, and Aziraphale’s whole expression glows with beatific joy as he beams down at Crowley. Crowley pushes to sit up in a hurry so he can more quickly duck his head and hide his expression, but his voice still decides to turn traitor and melt into unrestrained softness as he pushes a hand through the tumble of his hair. “I can’t refuse you anything, angel.”

“I know,” Aziraphale says without a hint of a guilty conscience, and extends his hand to Crowley sitting on the couch. When Crowley looks up the other is still beaming at him, his eyes sparkling with an anticipation that Crowley has only ever seen on a bare handful of occasions, and the vast majority of those involving pastry. “Come dance with me, my dear.”

Crowley groans again, just for good measure, and also because it’s the closest he can come to actual refusal under the circumstances. Those circumstances are that his hand is reaching out to take Aziraphale’s, and his palm is bracing against the edge of the couch beneath him so he can push himself up, and when Aziraphale backs out into the clear space at the middle of the room Crowley follows him immediately, and remains standing when Aziraphale lets his hand go to dimple a smile and retreat in pursuit of some appropriate music. Crowley is left to wait in the middle of the room, reflecting upon the various allergies to obedience he has mustered in his life and how ironic it should be that in the end all it takes is a smile and a pair of bright eyes to undo any demonic resistance he might have once had; and then Aziraphale is coming back faster than he went so he’s a little out of breath as he draws up in front of Crowley to the opening chords of what sounds alarmingly like a harpsichord.

“You’ll have to bear with me,” Aziraphale says, straightening himself to deliberate propriety as he positions himself across from Crowley, who is presently doing his best to slouch as much as demonically possible while still remaining in an ostensibly upright position. “It’s been some time since I had the chance to indulge myself.”

“It’s not like I’m going to care how well you’re dancing, angel,” Crowley points out. “I didn’t learn the steps because of a personal interest in the art of the gavotte.” He drops into the most haughty sarcasm he can muster for the last word, but even this attempt at subterfuge seems to fall rather short of disguising the obvious detail of why he _ did _ learn the steps, judging from the radiant smile Aziraphale gives him. Crowley blinks, wishing vaguely for the protection his dark glasses might offer to the illumination in Aziraphale’s face, and then the chords of the dance pick up and Aziraphale steps forward in perfect time with them. It’s only seeing the other move that cues Crowley to lurch forward in an echo of Aziraphale’s motion, and even then he’s delayed by a moment in lifting his hand to barely press against the other’s upraised palm, but Aziraphale’s beaming smile doesn’t falter even at Crowley’s rather clumsy execution of the opening steps of the dance.

“It’s been an _ age _ since I did this,” Aziraphale confesses as they move into arcs to circle each other. Crowley is regaining the dusty memory of this from the mental recesses where he stuffed it after laying picking it up a century ago; he’s almost caught up to Aziraphale’s movement by the time they rejoin in the middle of the living room floor. “It’s amazing, how it all comes back to you, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Crowley drawls. “Miraculous.” That sarcasm flies wide as well, helped not at all by the way Crowley’s intended edge melts to softness as he and Aziraphale move back and then return to meet again in the space between them. The steps are stiff, formal and studied in a way that makes Crowley feel like he’s working from the figures of a textbook, but Aziraphale is smiling so wide he looks like he might lift off the floor without any help from his wings at all, and Crowley is finding it very difficult indeed to maintain his hold on his reservations with Aziraphale looking as delighted as he does. They move into another figure, stepping apart by a few feet only to come back in and rejoin; when Crowley lifts his hand to meet Aziraphale’s their fingers interlace to a clasp for the moment that they are moving in time with each other. Aziraphale is in his element, sparkling with enthusiasm as if he’s been treated to the greatest gift he could imagine; when Crowley takes stock of his own expression he finds his mouth curving towards a smile before he sternly represses it back to feigned disinterest.

They step across the room, drawing up almost to one of the shelves overburdened with flourishing greenery before pivoting to come back the way they came. Aziraphale is moving with certainty, now, dropping into an elegance sufficient to smooth away the formulaic edges of the dance into something that looks almost fluid. Crowley casts his gaze sideways to Aziraphale next to him, letting his feet continue on their set path while he watches his partner move with increasing grace. Crowley’s own body considers the ease of Aziraphale’s motions and decides that it can’t be all that hard, and Crowley finds himself giving way to the rhythm of the music, his steps softening into something very nearly like style in spite of all his expectations. By the time they make their second pass around the room they are truly dancing together, moving with a balance that makes the most of Crowley’s boneless slouch and Aziraphale’s carefully-honed experience. Crowley isn’t quite sure that he’s enjoying himself, and he’s very sure he doesn’t want to admit to such even if he is; but it is true that he is surprised when the song slows to mark the conclusion of the piece and to draw them to a halt in the middle of the floor. They pause in the center of the room, facing each other as the last chords of the music chime over them; and then Aziraphale tips in over the gap between them to kiss Crowley’s mouth.

Crowley’s attention lets go its hold on everything irrelevant, including such trivialities as sight, and movement, and breathing, in favor of closing entirely around the friction of Aziraphale’s lips brushing against his own. His mouth goes soft in the same instant capitulation that tilts his shoulders in and tightens his hold around Aziraphale’s hand; for a brief, perfect eternity Crowley is granted access to the heaven of Aziraphale’s smile warm against his own. Then Aziraphale draws back, and Crowley realizes he has shut his eyes and has to put in the effort to open them, and then the greater one to bring his vision back into focus so he can see the pink flush rising across the curve of Aziraphale’s rosy cheeks.

Aziraphale clears his throat and speaks in a rather higher tone than usual. “There’s...there’s no need to look quite so shocked,” he says with such clarity Crowley can almost see the crystal of it catching the light. “I thought you said you had learned the dance.”

“Uh,” Crowley says. “Yeah. I did. The dance part, anyway.” His forehead creases itself around a wandering thought; a moment later his mind catches up to claim it. “You were _ kissing _ people in those dance halls?”

“Ah,” Aziraphale says. The color of his cheeks darkens; his attention decides it wants no part of this conversation, and slides away from Crowley’s eyes to trace against the plants along the wall behind him. “Not exactly.” He clears his throat delicately. “We left the last part out, often.”

Crowley raises his eyebrows. “Often?”

“Usually,” Aziraphale amends. “Well. Always. It was never seen as what you might call respectable, you see.”

“I do see,” Crowley says.

“But it’s supposed to be part of the dance,” Aziraphale continues, ducking his head as his hand tightens on Crowley’s in his like he’s trying to press his point physically beneath the other’s skin. “It always quite bothered me to leave it off when it’s the proper conclusion, and so long as I was going to dance with _ you _ I thought you wouldn’t mind--”

“I don’t,” Crowley says immediately. “Who said anything about me minding?”

“--and I just wanted to--”

“Not at all,” Crowley continues. “Opposite of minding. Unminded, that’s me.”

“--do it right for once,” Aziraphale finishes, and then goes back over the last several seconds to catch back up to what Crowley said before he looks back to meet the other’s gaze as well. “Oh. You don’t?” Crowley decides he might be better off holding his tongue and contents himself with shaking his head with force enough to carry his point. Aziraphale’s eyes open wide before he softens to an enormous smile. “Oh.”

Crowley struggles with his throat for a moment until he gets it pinned down enough to muster coherency. “Yeah,” he says. “You can kiss me any time you want. Or just. Any time.”

Aziraphale tips his head to the side as his mouth works over softness. He lifts the hand not currently laced inextricably with Crowley’s to touch against the other’s face. “Oh, Crowley.” Crowley tries very hard not to lean into the warmth of Aziraphale’s fingers against his skin before the other’s thumb slides up against the sigil just before his ear, and he decides that some temptations are better to give in to anyway and angles in to press against the other’s palm. Aziraphale’s fingers slide back into his hair and to trace against the back of his neck, and Crowley shuts his eyes and tips his head to urge in closer against the other’s hold with complete disregard for the audience of houseplants they have all around them.

“Darling,” Aziraphale says. “You really are a soft touch, aren’t you?”

“Only for some,” Crowley tells him, and opens his eyes to see the warmth in Aziraphale’s face and the softness at his mouth as he looks at him. “Kiss me, angel.”

Aziraphale’s smile sparkles sunlight in his eyes. “Yes, dearest,” he says, and obeys.


End file.
